This Creature Is Older Than The Concept of Blood

Welcome back to Bizarre Beasts: Season Zero, where we are remastering episodes of Bizarre Beasts that were originally created for Vlogbrothers. This episode, Feather Stars! The ancient sea creature that has been on this planet for 500 million years.

The Feather Star pins were designed by Rachel Calderon Navarro.

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[gracchus]

This explains the crinoid proverb: "Blood is the exact same thickness as water"

[josephd.]

This is a species that hung out with trilobites *and survived what killed them.*

[michealwestfall]

Surgery must be easy for them. Nurse, I need 50 cc of seawater.

[Blackmark]

"before blood existed"
Using seawater as blood has gotta be the most interesting fact in this video. That's mind blowing and makes me think that our blood being salty has it's origins in seawater.

[dylaneverett]

Hi I’d just like to point out one minor mistake! The animal shown at 1:31 is not a stalked crinoid, it’s a type of polychaete tube worm. You can tell because the ‘stalk’ is smooth and unsegmented, and the feathery tentacles don’t have the right anatomy. There are also generally too many ‘arms’ present.

[oucyan]

Ah, the ocean, the only place on the planet where animals can look like plants (without the use of mimicry)

[superkamehameha]

Sea urchin: *exists
Crinoids: "aight, imma head out"

[samwill]

When something that is, for god and everyone, seemingly just a plant
Gets up...and WALKS AWAY

[chasebh]

It's absolutely incredible how there's creatures that still exist from the *beginning of life itself* that just went "yah this is fine" and didn't bother evolving

[Miner-dyne]

"Predation by ancient urchins" is my new favorite reason to relocate.

[LexYeen]

sea lilly: **walks**
me: that's illegal

[LCTesla]

Can't get blood infections **taps temple**
If you don't have blood

[silentglacierfang]

2:40, this is giving *_-"B̸è̶ ̶n̶ô̵t̴ ̵a̷f̴r̶ã̷ï̶d"-_* energy. Like a sea angel.

[OnlyKaerius]

Ah yes, nature's velcro. I can't emphasize enough how much these will stick to you.

[EdwardDowner]

A correction for your correction video, at 1:32 that isn't a sea lilly, crinoid or even an echinoid, that's a feather duster worm and type of polychaete worm.

[jamie_miller]

you: feather star
me, an intellectual: biblically accurate feather duster

[VTA-SNPCA-x]

I love how some really ancient life just keeps on living and it's still here with us (in a cladistic sense, of course species differ now, except in super rare cars they don't at all).
We still know so little about our deep past this helps to visualize how life could look like and better imagine it.
Crynoids, sponges, many branches of bacteria and archea are around for hair a billion years and more, and they very well be present half a billion or more years after us.

They not having blood blew my mind back when i was a child.

[michaelperrone]

You know what's wild? When I was a young kid we pretty much didn't know crinoids weren't extinct - it's wild to be a kid picking up fossils and then one day just see the living things themselves - I got so excited by the early footage

[michaelturner]

Biblically accurate angels of the sea.

[Fredman]

I went to Cancun 41 years ago, and was surprised at how cool the beach 'sand' was on the feet. I remember looking at it closely and saw that they were all little donuts. I later read that the beach is largely made of tiny crinoid fossils, and the holes allow water and air to pass through the 'sand', keeping it cool.